1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to firearms, and more particularly to an accessory activation controller for firearms.
2. Description of Related Art
In present art guns, the mechanism for activating a laser or other attached electronic device typically involves pressing a button, sliding a switch, using a pressure pad type switch or other type of manual switch. Thus, an additional step is needed to activate a laser aiming device or other electronic device (e.g. a flashlight for illumination, or a video camera for recordkeeping, or the like). Particularly in moments of extreme duress, this extra step complicates and/or delays the act of shooting while potentially providing an adversary a momentary advantage.
Current finger pressure activation devices for weapon mounted flashlights, lasers or other devices are limited in their ability to only activate one, or possibly two devices. Each additional accessory generally requires its own pressure switch which is glued or attached by Velcro® onto the front of the weapon requiring the non-shooting hand to activate the device(s). The need for multiple pressure switches causes insurmountable problems with fastening and positioning the switches onto the weapon for selective or group activation. Multiple pressure switches with multiple cords by their nature are extremely vulnerable to damage, hard to fix into place, control, activate and protect from snagging.
Larger Picatinny Rail systems are being installed that are allowing more devices to be attached to weapons, which are exacerbating an already existing problem with pressure switch placement, control, damage protection and accidental activation of the device.
Therefore, it would be desirable to equip a firearm with multiple ways to activate the laser, to accommodate different scenarios where a soldier, law enforcement officer, or other needs to present his weapon.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus that consolidates the activation of a plurality of firearm accessories with a rail mounted device into which the accessories are plugged for selective activation with the trigger finger alone through a trigger activation switch or a button.